, though it
belonged to another person; would that be right?"

BOY. "No, master; for the tenth commandment says, 'Thou shalt not
covet.'"

MASTER. "Very well. Here are four of God's positive commands already
broken. Now, do you think thieves ever scruple to use wicked words?"

BOY. "I am afraid not, master."

Here Dick Giles was not so hardened but that he remembered how many
curses had passed between him and his father while they were filling
the bags, and he was afraid to look up. The master went on.

"I will now go one step further. If the thief to all his other sins
has added that of accusing the innocent to save himself--if he should
break the ninth commandment, by bearing false witness against a
harmless neighbor, then _six commandments are broken for an apple_!
But if it be otherwise, if Tom Price should be found guilty, it is not
his good character shall save him. I shall shed tears over him, but
punish him I must, and that severely."

"No, that you sha'n't," roared out Dick Giles, who sprung from his
hiding-place, fell on his knees, and burst out a crying. "Tom Price is
as good a boy as ever lived; it was father and I who stole the
apples."

It would have done your heart good to have seen the joy of the master,
the modest blushes of Tom Price, and the satisfaction of every honest
boy in the school. All shook hands with Tom, and even Dick got some
portion of pity. I wish I had room to give my readers the moving
exhortation which the master gave. But while Mr. Wilson left the
guilty boy to the management of the master, he thought it became him,
as a minister and a magistrate, to go to the extent of the law in
punishing the father.

Early on Monday morning, he sent to apprehend Giles. In the meantime,
Mr. Wilson was sent for to a gardener's house, two miles distant, to
attend a man who was dying. This was a duty to which all others gave
way, in his mind. He set out directly; but what was his surprise, on
his arrival, to see, on a little bed on the floor, poaching Giles
lying, in all the agonies of death! Jack Weston, a poor young man,
against whom Giles had informed for killing a hare, was kneeling by
him, offering him some broth, and talking to him in the kindest
manner. Mr. Wilson begged to know the meaning of all this; and Jack
Weston spoke as follows:

"At four this morning, as I was going out to mow, passing under the
high wall of this garden, I heard a most dismal moaning. The nearer I
came, the